Yogurt with honey enhances probiotic abundance, survival, in first 'in vivo' study

But enhancing probiotic survival and abundance is a key challenge for food manufacturers to solve, as these beneficial microorganisms are sensitive to heat and acidity. While methods such as microencapsulation can address perishability issues, enhancing probiotic populations in the gut is more complicated.

Honey – a common food pairing for yogurt – may be a natural, clean-label solution to boosting both probiotic abundance and survival, new research has revealed.

Published in The Journal of Nutrition, the study set out to discover if adding honey to yogurt could increase the abundance of probiotic populations in the gut. It is the first study to investigate this, according to the authors, who theorized that adding honey to yogurt would improve digestive health, mood and cognition.

They carried out a trial among 62 healthy adults who were split into two groups: a control group that consumed heat-treated yogurt with sugar, and another group that was provided probiotic yogurt and honey. The probiotic yogurt used in the trial was a low-fat vanilla product from Danone’s Activia brand that contained ≥108 CFU/g of B. animalis, while the control product was heat-treated to inactivate the probiotics.

An extension study was also conducted afterwards where participants consumed a yogurt and sugar beverage to deliver reference results on the effects of probiotics in formulations that do not include honey.

“To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to translate in vitro research demonstrating enhanced probiotic survival with honey into a human study,” the authors explained in the paper.

Specifically, the trial proved that combining yogurt with honey supported probiotic enrichment, with the findings from the extension study supporting the initial trial results. The research also found some beneficial effects on mood and cognition – in particular, stress reduction – suggesting that fermented dairy consumption has potential benefits in this field. There is scope for another study to examine the effects of yogurt and honey on mental health, the authors noted.

Some benefits – such as improving bowel function – could not be proved in this first of its kind trial, however. There were also no definitive links between digestive symptoms and the consumption of yogurt and honey, but the study did support existing research into yogurt’s beneficial effects on gut health and digestion.

What’s the role of synbiotics in probiotic survival?

While the authors claim they have been the first to study the effects of probiotic yogurt and honey in a human trial, previous research had looked into synbiotics’ role in protecting probiotics.

Synbiotics are ingredients that combine prebiotics and postbiotics in a single entity; for example, in a similar way to honey, fruit and plant extracts contain prebiotics, polyphenols and antioxidants. Experiments in the past have shown that plant extracts in yogurt protected bioactive compounds such as probiotics and improved culture viability.

“[F]uture studies should further explore the effects of yogurt and probiotics combined with honey and other food ingredients,” the authors concluded.

“These whole food ingredients are readily available to the public and have the potential to boost probiotic efficacy to help maintain well-being in healthy populations and improve health in people with gastrointestinal and mental health conditions.”

Source:

Honey Added to Yogurt with Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis DN-173 010/CNCM I-2494 Supports Probiotic Enrichment but Does Not Reduce Intestinal Transit Time in Healthy Adults: A Randomized, Controlled, Crossover Trial
Authors: Hannah D Holscher, et al.
Published: The Journal of Nutrition, 2024, ISSN 0022-3166
DOI: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.05.028​